My Invisible Cities

Luce – Cities and Eyes

theme: “a maze of intrigue”

Perched on their long flamingo legs, the piers stand high above the water, waiting for the tide to bring the ships home. Underneath, crabs scuttle quickly across the sand, moving on mysterious business of their own. Stray dogs congregate, meeting, fighting, moving away, forming and reforming, leaving patterns of paw prints across the sand. Beggars, too, meet beneath the piers, huddling together, awaiting the sailors return. The streets above are no place for the innocent, when the sailors are away, for cats, thieves and illicit lovers move along the city streets, high above the sand.

Darting quickly through the shadows, thieves lounge in the patches of sun, insolently waiting for the unwary traveler to prey upon. The cats walk proudly through the streets, tails held high. They know they own the streets, at least until the sailors return. No dogs or rats remain to bother them, exiled as they are to the world below the piers, the world of sand and damp. They, too, meet and move away, forming spider-webs of intricate relationships, unseen by all but the most perceptive eyes. Illicit lovers know no fear; they have nothing to hide from the day. The sunlight streets belong to all of them, these creatures of intrigue.

Then the tide comes, hiding the long flamingo legs of the pier deep beneath the waves. Multicolored lamps are lighted to welcome the sailors home. Disembarking from the ships, their raucous laughter greets the innocent, finally free to walk the streets. The dogs throng the piers, welcoming their masters home. The beggars move once again to the streets, no longer afraid of ruthless thieves. Illicit lovers again slink through the shadows, full of amorous trepidation, pursing their passions away from prying eyes. The thieves move back to the shadows, slinking along the darkened streets. The cats, too, move to the shadows, hiding in the night. No longer light, the streets are all strangers, and normality returns, until the sun shines on the lanky flamingo piers.

Rivare – Cities and the Sky

theme: “manifest destiny”

A lone tumbleweed rolls down the dusty street, tumbling and careening drunkenly through the town. The streets are quiet, only the rustle of the occasional curtain breaks the silence. A speck appears in the distance, one dark spot against the brassy horizon. Shimmering and wavering, the dark spot grows, finally materializing into a weary rider on a tired horse, both bowed by the brassy sun. Dismounting, the rider’s bow-legged shadow stretches down the street, a dark stain on the tan road. Leading the tired horse to water, he slouches bonelessly against the hitching post, hat pulled down, shading his eyes.

This is the first town the rider has seen for days, and he almost missed it. The weathered buildings are obviously new, but they look like they’ve been there forever. The wood is already cracking and peeling in the hot sun, and the dust has pervaded everything, the desert is slowly overtaking the walls. The sun, already close to the horizon, starts its slow descent below the horizon. The sky turns a brilliant red, giving a bloody cast to the worn buildings. Other specks appear on the horizon, coalescing into a mass in which flashes of hooves and horns can be seen. A noise begins to grow in this air in which a yellowish dust flies, a low rumble of thunder interspersed with the lowing of disgruntled cattle. At long last, men materialize on the edges of the herd, this faces showing a kaleidoscope of eyes, wrinkles, and grimaces as they choke on the heavy dust. Bone tired, these riders pen the cattle, securing them from the dangers of the night.

The lone rider watches from the shadows, gazing on a town holding on by a thread, barely holding off the inexorable encroachment of the desert. The riders move to their homes, those dry, faded buildings, where they dream of a lush land, with cattle grazing on green pastures, with myriad streams snaking across the land. Their dream will someday be realized, but only when they no longer hold that dream. The lone rider knows that amid the dreams, destiny is slowly catching up to the town, that someday, when these young men are old, they will dream of times gone by as the city bustles around them, and only old postcards will show it as it used to be.

Iris - Cities and Desire

theme: “opulent escape”

Bright lights assail the eyes, blinking and flashing in a desperate attempt to advertise their many delights. Multicolored lamps are lighted from dawn ‘til dusk and dusk ‘til dawn, never dark, never sleeping. So simplistic and stylized are these lights, that the eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things. Flashing neon arrows point the way to filigree palaces with fringed cushions, housing ladies of negotiable affection. Spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells lead to rooms filled with earthly delights; food, wine, strong spirits, cards and tables, gamblers and jokers. Watching over all is a giant mirror, spanning the ceiling, creating an illusion of a limitless sky. Despite the bustle below, every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, moving up and down the spiral staircase set in negative.

A fountain stands in the center of town, dominating the view from each opulent palace. A tribute to ephemeral beauty, the threads of water fanning from the showers glisten in rainbow colors beneath the light of the neon moon. This city has the timelessness only achievable by centuries of decadence, moving slowly, sluggishly through the years, while peoples’ lives flicker by. This web of human lives seems transparent as a dragonfly against the city, always changing, but always the same. People move in and move out, never staying long, but their essences stay, though none of them keeps the same eyes and voice he had in the previous scene.

The transitory nature of the city is mirrored in the lights, flashing their messages down on moments of generous abandon, flickering and fading as the years wear on. Buildings, too, grow, decay and are replaced, rebuilt in even greater style. Only the fountain remains constant, weathering the centuries hidden beneath its watery curtain. No one knows what face the fountain wears beneath this shimmering rainbow, some say it changes with the buildings, but more say it is the one soul that could never leave, captured unchanging in this city of fleeting desires.

Campana – Hidden Cities

Night falls slowly over the city, gently darkening the sky. The warm glow of oil lamps falls on a young couple, idly walking the streets, hands lightly clasped. Moving out of the pools of light they close together against the darkness, seeking comfort in each others presence. Dusk is a strange time to see a new city, building lines soften and blur, fading into the dark. The only solid lines belong to windows, casting out pools of isolated brightness, dispelling nighttime’s ghosts. The city is quiet, families not yet sitting down to dinner but all inside for the night.

The gleeful peal of a church bell breaks the silence, heralding the evening hour. This sounds releases all the rest, and the air is filled with laughter and the chatter of families. Crickets add their fiddling to the music of the night; the howling of wolves an eerie counterpoint. The church bell still tolls, now disjointed. The bell ringers are warming up, practicing for days to come. As dusk fades into night, they finally finish, and the church goes dark. The bell ringers are headed home, toward their own points of light in the darkness.

The city is different by night. The buildings are no longer soft; instead they loom up on either side, a blacker black against the night sky. The moonlight casts harsh shadows, creating puddles of night behind every shrub and tree. The crickets slow their tune to a mournful melody and the wolves’ cries ache with loneliness. The brightly lit windows no longer dispel the dark, the small harsh squares getting swallowed by the night. The ghosts begin to emerge, gaining confidence as darkness grows, haunting the bushes, looking with longing into the well lit windows, the last bastion against utter night. The young couple, no longer entranced with the softened magical city, threatened by the ghosts in the dark, hurry back, keeping close, guarding against the night. The streets are deserted at last, leaving the night to the ghosts and the music, played by fiddling crickets, sung by lonely wolves.

Manifest destiny (the theme of Rivare) was the easiest to use. It seemed to lend itself to an old western theme and fit well with a distanced description. It was easier to write the cities with a theme, but I think that was because of the use of Calvino’s phrases. The way he writes fits with all of the themes found in his work, making it easy to use his phrases. The most difficult part of the assignment was getting the descriptions to a page each. This is longer than most of Calvino’s cities, requiring a more in-depth description. I liked Calvino’s use of language, and tried to borrow from it when doing my writing, partly for the sound and partly to make the rest of my piece fit with the themes and phrases taken from his work. I do think Rome could be one of these invisible cities, it changes so much throughout the day, from the shopping crowds in the morning to the siesta to the young scene at night, it’s impossible to see all sides of the city at any given time. Rome’s theme should be: unfamiliar contrasts.